Enter KENT.

Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing.

Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night,

Love not such nights as these: the wrathful skies Gallow 3 the very wanderers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves. Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry The affliction, nor the fear.

Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue Thou art incestuous: Caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis'd on man's life: - Close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and cry These dreadful summoners grace. 5 — I am a man, More sinn'd against, than sinning. Kent. Alack, bare-headed! Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest; Repose you there: while I to this hard house, (More hard than is the stone whereof 'tis rais'd; Which even but now, demanding after you, Denied me to come in,) return, and force Their scanted courtesy.

Lear.

My wits begin to turn, Come on, my boy: How dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself. -Where is this straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious.

hovel,

Come, your

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee.

Fool. He that has a little tiny wit,

With heigh, ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit; For the rain it raineth every day.

Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel. [Exeunt LEAR and KENT. Fool. I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:

When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When every case in law is right;

No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues;

Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
Then shall the realm of Albion

Come to great confusion.

Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be us'd with feet.

This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before [Exit.

his time.

might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me on pain of their perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm. Most savage, and unnatural!

Glo. Go to; say you nothing: There is division between the dukes; and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night; -'tis dangerous to be spoken;-I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be footed: we must incline to the king. I will seek revenged home; there is part of a power already him, and privily relieve him: go you, and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: If he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit.

Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me Instantly know; and of that letter too: That which my father loses; no less than all: The younger rises, when the old doth fall. SCENE IV.A Part of the Heath, with a Hovel. Enter LEAR, KENT, and Fool.

[Exit.

The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there. — Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand,
For lifting food to 't? But I will punish home:-
No, I will weep no more. — In such a night
To shut me out! - Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril! -
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that:
No more of that.

Kent.
Good my lord, enter here.
Lear. Pr'ythee, go in thyself; seek thine own

ease;

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd, and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en

hand: Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to women: Keep thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend. - Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind: Says suum, mun, ha no nonny, dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa; let him trot by. [Storm still continues. Lear. Why, thou wert better in thy grave, than Ito answer with thy uncovered body this extrem. ty of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well: Thou owest the worm no silk, the

Come forth.

Enter EDGAR, disguised as a Madman. Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind. Humph! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee. Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? And art thou come to this?

Edg. Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor : Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold, O, do de, do de, do de. — Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking!? Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: There could I have him now, and there, - and there, — and there again, and there.

[Storm continues. Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? Could'st thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?

Fool. Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

Lear. Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous

air

Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy daughters! Kent. He hath no daughters, sir.

Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters. —
Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

Edg. Pillicock sat on pillicock's hill; Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!

Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

Edg. Take heed o' the foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array: Tom's a-cold.

Lear. What hast thou been?

Edg. A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore gloves in my cap; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven: Wine loved I deeply; dice dearly; False of heart, light of ear, bloody of 7 To take is to blast, or strike with malignant influence. It was the custom to wear gloves in the hat, as the favour of a mistress.

fume: Ha! here three of us are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.-Off, off, you lendings: Come; un[Tearing of his Clothes. Fool. Pry'thee, nuncle, be contented; this is a naughty night to swim in.-Look, here comes a walking fire.

button here.

Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip: mildews the white wheat, and hunts the poor creature of earth.

Saint Withold footed thrice the wold";
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee3, witch, aroint thee!
Kent. How fares your grace?

Enter GLOSTER, with a Torch.
Lear. What's he?

Kent. Who's there? What is't you seek?
Glo. What are you there? Your names?

Edg. Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog. the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water1; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, swallows the old rat, and the ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing-pool; who is whipped from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapon to wear.

But mice, and rats, and such small deer, Have been Tom's food for seven long year. Beware my follower: - Peace, Smolkin 6; peace, thou fiend!

Glo. What, hath your grace no better company? Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.7

Glo. Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile, That it doth hate what gets it.

Edg. Poor Tom's a-cold.

Glo. Go in with me; my duty cannot suffer To obey in all your daughter's hard commands: Though their injunction be to bar my doors, And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you; Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out, And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled. Do de, do de. Sessa. Come, march to wakes and fairs, and market towns:- Poor Tom, thy horn is dry. Lear. Then let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart: Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian attire; but let them be changed. [To EDGAR. Kent. Now, good my lord, lie here, and rest awhile. Lear. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains; So, so, so: We'll go to supper i' the morning: So, so, so.

Fool. And I'll go to bed at noon.

Re-enter GLOSTER.

This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses, Which, if convenience will not allow,

Stand in hard cure.- -Come, help to bear thy master; Thou must not stay behind. [To the Fool. Glo. Come, come, away. [Exeunt KENT, GLOSTER, and the Fool, bearing off the King.

Edg. When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes. Who alone suffers, suffers most i' the mind; Leaving free things, and happy shows, behind:

2 A blood-hound.

But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend, makes the king
bow;

He childed, as I father'd! - Tom, away:
Mark the high noises 3; and thyself bewray,
When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles
thee,

In thy just proof, repeals, and reconciles thee.
What will hap more to-night, safe 'scape the king!
Lurk, lurk.
[Ert.

SCENE VII.A Room in Gloster's Castle. Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, GONERIL, EDMUND, and Servants.

Corn. Post speedily to my lord, your husband; show him this letter:-the army of France is landed: Seek out the villain Gloster.

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